Dig a trench

[Boney 0]

I will have to dig a trench in about 4 weeks. 18" deep width not inportant and about 100ft long. I was thinking of buying/finding a moldboard plow to help with this. Does anyone have any suggestions? I will be using a 725. thnx

[thedaddycat 153]

Herm, you're welcome to come borrow my plow but I don't think it will get down that deep....

[MadMike 11]

Herm, I always thought this would work. Get the initial trench dug with the Moldboard plow, then switch to a mid mount grader blade and keep peeling away little by little to get to the depth you want. With one side of the front tires in the trench and the blade turned to pull dirt away, seems like the leading point of the grader blade would dig in and work. Of course, I don't have a Moldboard plow yet so I haven't been able to test my theory. When I do get one, I will be trying to dig a 3' to 4' wide x 1' to 2' deep ditch about a 1000' long. It may take a while. Mike

[Guest]

It starts a trench nicely, but I had to hand dig down 18" for 60' myself. My land is really soft with little rocks. Unfortunately, while I was thinking like you... it didn't work. Best thing is a HD rental trencher. RE: "I will be trying to dig a 3' to 4' wide x 1' to 2' deep ditch about a 1000' long. It may take a while"... persistance will win, but I agree it will take a long time.

[Ronald Hribar 91]

What is trench for? I think there have been posts in the past that had a flat blade attachment for rear lift. Much like taking a knife and slicing a hole in the ground. At the bottom and to the rear of the knife the wire or flexible pipe goes thru a guide. As you go forward with tractor the wire or pipe unrolls into newly created trench.

[Boney 0]

I need to run conduit {spelling} for an electrical wire from the house to the shed. Any comments on how to do this please feel free to give them. I can use all the help I can get. Thnx

[Vinnie_A 3]

Why 18" deep for a conduit? Here is how I dug a trench for my sprinkler system and an underground romex cable. I used a log rolling device not sure what is called it is a 3" diam wooden pole 4 foot long withe a sharp metal pencil point with a sharp movable hook that moves back and forth these are both at the same end of the pole.I put the metal hook in the 3/4" hitch in the back of my B 110 forced the point in the ground .As my wife drove away I forced the point into the ground and a 6 inch deep ditch followed the path of the tractor.

[UCD 14]

That log rolling tool is called a Cantdog or a Pive.

[Conrad 0]

Why not use a walk behind roto tiller to loosen up the ground, shovel it out and make some more passes? I did this on a 65 foot ditch. Didn't take too long and I had the tiller. I took off the outside tines and it came up one shovel width wide. Even helped to set the grade for drainage. Just a thought. Should be cheaper than renting a ditcher.

[RonT 1]

Just did the same thing for the pool. I used a Honda Harmony tiller with out the outside tines. It made about a 6"-8" wide trench about 60' long and went about 8"-10" deep in conduit. Just a thought when pulling wire pull one more than you need right now. I ran three pulls of 12ga. for the pool. One for the filter and light, one for a heater if it is needed in the future, and one for the deck.

[Leroy 0]

Call the locating service for free. That way you wont trench your gas line or the septic tank line. After that an E Z method is to just rent a D8 cat for 2 hours. Move the 18" of soil to one side. Lay the wire filled conduit on the ground and push the soil back over it and reseed. This method removes the constant tamping to get the bump out from the soil caused from the method used to lay the conduit. Also it provides a newly seeded landscape. :)

[PatrickE 0]

Great ideas, I have to do the same job too!

[Guest]

18" is the normal "electrical code" or "town code" depth. Otherwise, direct burial wire is good too.

[HubbardRA 19]

As Ronald said above, my friend used a sub-soiler, which is a small chisel plow point on a beam, that he pulled behind his Kubota tractor, to plunge down to the depth. He welded a couple loops on the back of the beam so that an underground cable could be fed in behind the plow point. His wife drove the tractor slowly as he fed the cable. He said it worked great. He put it down about a foot deep. I think he laid about 200 ft of cable.

[Kent 435]

Herm, I don't know what your local code is in your area, but when I had 220V run to my barn, I had to put it at least 18" deep, and put it in conduit... The electrician would run the line, the conduit, and connect the new breaker box in the barn, but he wouldn't dig the trench. We did it the hard way, with a pick and shovel, though it's less than 20 feet...

[Leroy 0]

Well y'all haz it too easy. I had to put in a 4 inch conduit 5 feet deep for 80 feet and our frost layer is about2 inches. I just asked the back hoe operators who were putting in a gas service for a neighbor to cmon over for smore digging fun. One did and he only wanted 50 bucks and he made a special trip on a Saterday and brought a 4 yard dump load of 3/4 minus for 40 bucks. This guy is a contractor for the gas company he is always very nice and boy was i lucky. I think he saw all the work i had to do and chalked it up to community service lol. I told him i would pay him his normal rate to flatten out the drive way one day he quoted me 1400. I guess he is just enjoy playing with his toy 580 superL extend a hoe. and picking up a few bucks for weekend work. I indeed will call him for some deep work that requires a permit. He dug that hole like he had a big pencil in his hand was was erasing a mark and gently placing the pile of soil to make it easy to fill back in. The moral of this long winded story is look around. Some folks have the equipment and they enjoy showing you just how good they are with it. Be prepared to offer some real cash.

[Chris727 1,933]

My Dad and I had to dig a trench last year. Not sure how deep it was. I think it was at least 16" deep. It was probably at least 100 foot long and we rented a walk behind trencher. We found it very difficult to use. We had to do a slight curve and couldn't really get it to steer, even when trying to load it we couldn't get the front lifted up enough to turn it. I would get a ride-on ditch witch if I ever had to do it again.

[Boney 0]

Thanx all for the great advice, I have many ideas to think about.

[wilm169 1]

Maybe you could useone of these, I plow in 1 1/2" pipe about 18" deep with this for the eletricions around here.:D

No back fill just drive back over it and its all gone. Works with a long thin knife and pulling chain with a chinese finger.

[Leroy 0]

Cuff